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Lon Van Eaton and Friends

I’m hoping Santa will bring me the new Best of Apple Records compilation. It includes ‘Sweet Music’, a track from ‘Brother’, Lon and Derrek Van Eaton’s album on Apple that certainly deserves a CD release. The credits for ‘Brother’ include many familiar names — George Harrison, Klaus Voormann, Ringo Starr, Jim Gordon (drums), Phil McDonald (engineer), and Clive Arrowsmith (photos).

Tonight, Lon Van Eaton will be appearing in his home state of New Jersey, at The Record Collector.

It’s nice to see that Apple Records has added a web page about Lon and Derrek.

Lon & Derek Van Eaton

Lon and Derrek van Eaton were one of the last acts signed to Apple Records and the first to record at the newly built Apple Studios. The brothers had previously been in a band called Jacobs Creek, who issued one self-titled US album on Columbia Records in 1969.

After that band split up, Lon and Derrek made a demo of ‘Sweet Music’, which they sent to Apple in New York. John Lennon heard it and was impressed. George liked it too, and it was George who called the van Eatons to ask if they would like to record for Apple.

A couple of quibbles. They’re inconsistent about the spelling of “Derek” vs. “Derrek,” and ‘Sweet Music’ is cited as the demo that was sent to Apple’s New York office. Apple’s original promotion for Lon and Derrek says they submitted a home recording, and based on the liner notes for ‘Brother’, the song would have been ‘Warm Woman’. Here’s that recording.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2010/DEC/WarmWoman.mp3|titles=Warm Woman|artists=Lon and Derrek Van Eaton]

The answer in plane sight

A few weeks ago I wrote about the mysterious appearance of the body of a dead teen on a dead end street in a town near Boston. The only explanation that fit the facts was that Delvonte Tisdale fell from an airplane. I had said, “I’m surprised that the theory is still being called an “unlikely and remote possibility,” because it’s the only thing that makes sense,” and now, finally, it seems this explanation is going to be made official.

They’re just trying to be friendly

BoingBoing’s Mean Monkey Mondays series ends today. I think the “Man’s Life” covers are the best, although this one doesn’t have any monkeys.

Denro asks, “Hey, is the brave guy trying to save the girl from the crazed turtles (snappers I assume!) or are the brave turtles trying to save the girl from the crazed guy with a knife?!?!?!?” What I’m wondering is if San Antonio is still the Texas home of love-happy girls. And if the woman on this other cover was torn apart by monkeys, how did she live to tell the tale? Maybe the parent who didn’t want her marrying the American with the knife had the monkeys attack her.

You’ll find some more “Man’s Life” covers, equally tasteful and informative, at this link. Some of the covers were painted by Norman Saunders, whose work I first saw in the 1966 Batman bubblegum card series that he did with Bob Powell.

Previously, Saunders and Powell were responsible for the infamous “Mars Attacks!” series, which was based on work by Wally Wood.

The grooviest girl in the world


© Henry Diltz/CORBIS

I’m in the middle of reading a Vanity Fair article from a few years ago about Michelle Phillips, whose look and style set the pace in 60’s youth fashion in America, the way Pattie Boyd did in England, before Twiggy came along.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/12/phillips200712

I knew Michelle lived some wild times, but … whoo! She wasn’t much into drugs, which is why she’s alive today, but she sure pursued the free love part of the 60’s. Anyway, while reading the article I had one of those coincidences that everybody experiences once in a while. I was on this passage…

Michelle sat up and summoned a recent visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral (her years in Mexico had given her an affection for Catholic churches) and came up with: “Stopped into a church I passed along the way / Well, I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray.” John, who’d loathed parochial school, “hated the line,” Michelle says, but kept it in for lack of anything better. Lucky he did; the line gave the song its arc of desperation to epiphany. Thus was born one of the first clarion calls of a changing culture, “California Dreamin’.”

…when this started playing as a random track on the Slacker music service.